


Tell Me Will This Déjà Vu Never End

by thegoodthebadandthenerdy



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Adult Richie Tozier, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Canon Universe, Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Small Towns, Writing Exercise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-24 14:16:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20359885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoodthebadandthenerdy/pseuds/thegoodthebadandthenerdy
Summary: But Derry is Derry and Richie is Richie and they get on about as well as a rat and poison.-Or: The inherent trauma of growing up bi in a small town, what it means to step foot into that place for the first time after getting out, and figuring out who you'll go back for.-Challenge: use the words garrulous, quaint, and obedient.





	Tell Me Will This Déjà Vu Never End

**Author's Note:**

> title from say youll be there by the spice girls bc as it turns out i cant write richie unless i listen to a playlist tht has at least one spice girls song, but usually multiple (i wish i were kidding)
> 
> ive never interacted w the new it franchise in any way until like. two weeks ago. i dont know shit abt the book and i dont want to. i watched the first movie once. were all just gonna ignore any mistakes and have fun
> 
> (also if you recognize tht one line of dialogue at the end, well, you know where its from)

All roads lead to Rome, but you have to circumvent each and every one of them to make it to Derry, and once you're in, you've only got the one choice to spit you right back out if you happen to live long enough to need that.

The car sputters under Richie's hands when he passes the first familiar mile marker, the one that lets him know he's about half an hour out if he keeps himself steady at the sixty he's been managing since he took the final exit. He ignores it like most things he doesn't want to entertain, gripping the steering wheel tight in one hand as he fiddles with the radio dial in the other. He skitters past each channel, more unsatisfied the farther he scrolls until he finally smacks it off, leaving him in a thick silence with cut outs for the rush of the wheels and the unsteady thrum of the engine.

The silence tastes more bitter than it ever has. Or maybe the bile shooting up his throat is coloring his perception, but either way, the back of his throat constricts uncomfortably, like the prelude to a cry that's going to be as dry as the heat in the summer. He hasn't exactly been in the business of giving away the things stuck in the back of his throat to Derry. Not tears and damn sure not words.

It's only after he gets tired of listening to his own hitching breath that he finally rolls the window down--at first a false start because the handle catches in the way that it has since he got the piece of shit car, but fifth time's the charm and all that--and the cold air that funnels in clears him enough he can mostly breathe steady again.

He taps his fingers in quick, nervous succession as he scans his mirrors, coming back with only foliage in mind. All these trees, all these trees around him and he hasn't paid attention to a single one yet. 

You get so used to them as a kid, and then it's such a fucking shock to your personal little ecosystem when you move to the city and the only trees you see are on those ones on the cheap wine bottles you pass in the dimly lit grocery store that looks exactly like the one you left back home, that once you come back around it's as if they never mattered in the first place.

Not that Derry has ever been any kind of home to him. Not in the way it should have, in the way he asked it to be so many fucking times he lost count before he even learned how to.

The trees still look the same, though, each inch of forest around him the picture perfect shot on every _Visit Maine!_ travel campaign bus ad he's loitered next to. The leaves drip like blood from a split bark lip, and the light from the sun--which has disappeared from his sight now, and he's glad for in some ways, something about not having to face this old one night stand town in the daylight--hits each one just enough to distract him from the highway to hell in front of him.

He should have remembered his CD book. The clock on the dash mocks him for that particular transgression every chance it gets, ticking closer and closer to whatever this is ahead of him.

When he got the call in that shithole motel room in Jersey, he never should've answered. He should've made small talk and then hung up. He should've said thanks but no fucking thanks, pal. Because he doesn't owe this to Mike Hanlon, or any of the rest of the band of dweebs he used to call home. He doesn't owe the first step back into this fucking town after so long of running away from it to anyone except himself. And it's rich to think he'll ever have enough money to pay back that debt he's still holding onto and probably always will be.

But in a way he does owe it to them, and he knows that, but the more he rages against this shattered concept instead of the one that's haunted him, the less he has to feed to his own fears. The Losers kept him alive in more ways than one--against Bowers and the like, against his own smart mouth, against more probably, but it's been so long he can't remember--and he owes them this one thing, even if they don't know it's anything to give.

At least that's what he keeps telling himself; some part of him is trying to be a better man, even if he thinks all he ever has been and ever will be is a scared kid trying to keep hold of his tumultuous place in their lives. Always on the edge of tipping over the cliff and into the waters below.

Besides, it's one night, right? One night where he gets to take pot shots at Bill since upping his comedy game, one night where he gets to see Bev--Beverly fucking Marsh, he won't believe it 'til he sees it. And Mike and Ben and Stan, if Stan even bothers to show. And Eddie.

The whole gang, the band back together for one night and one night only and then he can fly this shit-stained coop for the last time. It'll be fine, it'll be great, hearing about what? Fucking mortgages and failed marriages and peaking in high school, probably. And he'll realize that he was better off without them all along, good riddance, don't let the door hit you.

(He's never shied from blasphemy, but the thought is such a higher form of sacrilege he regrets it as soon as it passes.)

The time spent checked out from the ride gave the road a chance to narrow, and he knows he's close without so much as a glance at the road signs. There's an air about it all like a government worker hasn't been out for upkeep in too long, each pothole rattling his teeth and the lenses in his glasses' frames, the lines on the pavement that seperate lanes that should barely be seperated as is so faded they wink in and out without any given pattern.

He takes a thin, sharp curve faster than he should, feeling the pull of the wheel under his palm, the momentary combination of complete weightlessness and being so in tune with every layer of your body, and then he's right side up again, barreling along in a car that's protesting about as much as he is.

It's not long after that he sees it, and even sooner than that he feels an intense wave of nausea sweep over him. As soon as he passes 'Now Entering Derry,' it's like the pop of a rubber band against the bridge of his nose. A headache cracks up through his sinuses, pressing so hard it feels like someone cuffing his ears and digging their thumbs into the bone just below his eyes; so like the grip of a kiss he almost leans into the feeling. 

The car pulls again, growls over the sound of itself, and he jerks the wheel either out of surprise or bombardment, but whatever it is leaves his grill eating grass as he bumps along the off-side of the road. There's no smoke, but the engine hisses contemplatively when the car finally halts, sitting him in a tight silence that bursts like a water balloon over his head, dripping all the way down him as he propels forward.

The hands release in the instant he stumbles out of the car, every ounce of pain of an hours long migraine having gripped him in the span of seconds, leaving him bent over and retching as sound pops in and out of his ears. 

There aren't any cars around, at least, to witness the great Richie Tozier gagging and snuffling on the side of the road. But who the fuck willingly comes to Derry, anyway? Any motherfucker that does has to be some other kind of out of their mind.

(He has to be out of his mind for being here.)

When he stands, he plants one hand flat against the hood of the car, pressing hard against the warmth there, and stuffs his other hand into his side to grip the pattern of his shirt. From where he is, he can hear the steady ding of the door ajar light over the ringing in his ears, a metronome of broken things that pulses behind his screwed shut eyes.

One unsteady breath after another brings him back down until he can finally open his eyes enough to find himself dumped again in the driver's seat, this time with his head in his hands and the door flung open so he can keep his feet on the ground.

"Pull it the fuck together, Tozier." 

His voice sounds odd even to his own ears, but then again it had been a eight hour drive--maybe it had been more, he hadn't exactly kept count, and time always felt distorted once you crossed the state line anyway--and almost all of that had been spent in silence. 

He'd always been a garrulous kid. He'd learned at an early age that if you talked just loud enough, cracked enough jokes, no one asked any questions. They laughed and that made you feel needed, but the majority never wanted to know what was below the surface, and he'd always preferred that. He didn't realize _why_ until it was too late to leave the uneasy safety of Trashmouth behind, but that turned out to be his saving grace, didn't it?

Besides, being wanted wasn't the worst thing in the world--he was pretty sure he'd found that in a bathroom stall somewhere deep in L.A.

What it came down to, though, was the uncomfortable truth that the loud mouth and the crass jokes were a cardboard and masking tape front. Your self doesn't like to acknowledge that it's a fraud, you know, it can't stand the identity crisis. And it's in the time when he's without spectators that he has to face the fact that he is just that: an ongoing crisis of an unknown identity, a cobbled together mess of stolen parts who has no idea what the whole underneath it all looks like, and the pieces he does know he's too, too, too wrapped up in the past to even finish a thought about.

All right so this drive hasn't exactly been the best on his psyche, what's new? So he can't lie to himself about how much this fucking hurts, but who can? 

Leaning into the headrest, he feels on the verge of having the talk with himself he's been avoiding, the one where he puts on his big boy pants and tells himself to get the fuck over it, that oh, surprise, surprise, Tozier's blowing things out of proportion again. 

He keeps trying to strike a bargain with himself, when he can't bring himself to do anything else, but each time the match fizzles out before he can figure out what to say. 

Here, on the side of the road, he gets as far this: he doesn't have to say it in any of the old places that made him want to cut his tongue out of his mouth before ever uttering the word. 

Real cut and dry stuff, y'know.

And it's not everything he should say, but it's enough that he lugs his feet inside the car and slams the door shut and turns the engine back over and putters into town. But despite his hasty catharsis, something uncomfortable still rests at the base of his neck, whispering like a lengthy nail across the fine hairs there and getting heavier the farther he gets into the town's limits. 

He ignores it too, already tired of acknowledging any of the shit that crosses his mind because what good has it done him lately?

Maybe if he ignores everything, it'll all go away. It never does, but that hasn't ever stopped him from trying. Trust him to not give up on the most inane bullshit known to man.

His first thought when it all comes into focus is that Derry is still as quaint as ever, with its reclusiveness and painted on carnival smiles, like the only daylight that has ever touched the pavement here is the kind still filtered through thick, 80s ozone before all the hairspray humanity put in their hair and all the spraypaint they shot up their noses got to it.

(It all kind of pisses him off in a half-assed, passive way.)

If he hadn't already been, the untouched-ness of it all would make him sick. He'd hoped, at least, that it wouldn't look the same, that he could pretend it was one of the tiny, bustling towns on the verge he stepped into hazy comedy clubs for and then scattered from the second his contractual obligations were filled and there was cash in his back pocket. 

But Derry is Derry and Richie is Richie and they get on about as well as a rat and poison.

He still knows his way around with an efficiency that surprises him. He takes each turn with practiced hands that had learned the way in his dad's old truck during the summers before and after he'd ever been given a permit; Bill and Stan and Ben all crammed into the benchseat with him--because who the fuck cared about seatbelts back then--and Eddie, feet on the ground beside Mike, having a fucking asthma attack because every time Richie rounded the block there he was on the corner yelling at him to _use your fucking turn signals, asshole!_

It was almost a good feeling, remembering Stan shouting over the radio because he was as close to a voice of reason as they could get, Ben flipping through the CD book tsking over Richie's shit music taste, and Bill finally enjoying life for once, playing airplane with the window rolled down as Richie howled at the top of his lungs and cut turns sharp enough that looking back now he was surprised they didn't all die in some horrific crash that changed the tapestry of the town or some after school special shit like that. 

If he risked a look to his right, he could even see them: all desperately in need of haircuts, strands stuck to their foreheads--because the A/C had never worked in that old rust heap and he doubted it would now if he went and found it--caught mid-laugh or mid _watch out for the stop sign, at least, dickhead!_

The operative word, though, is _almost._ It's _almost_ good until he dwells on it, then it hurts like hell. All those years gone with the people that had been his whole fucking solar system. 

Twenty-odd years and he hasn't regretted leaving Derry once, the hate and the acid had nearly burned him through once before, and it's a wonder now, considering the kind of guy he is, that he's even functional--though there are plenty of people out there that would like to dispute that classification. But every now and then it swells, the regret of leaving them all behind. 

(And isn't that just how it goes? You don't say what you should, when you should, to who you should, and your life goes to hell right thereafter.)

He finally corrals himself into a parking space two minutes early under red neon lights and kills the engine, listening as it ticks away pent up heat while he's locked in place by a wall of fear. 

He thought it'd all be gone now, blown away in some easternly wind, but there it is, alive and kicking in his ribcage, snatching at whatever pieces of him are left. There's plenty to go around ladies, one at a time, he almost says, but there's no one around to deliver the laugh he's craving.

The thought of turning around and going home, being a no show and a coward on top of everything else, hits him for a split second at just the right angle to sound like a good idea. _That_ would be easy, that would be--nah, he knew better than to think any part of him would choose the easy way.

_Deep breaths, Trashmouth._ And the thought sounds so much like Bev he almost smacks the top of the wheel in a bone-deep frustration, or maybe it's finally weariness. He's surprised it hasn't caught up with him until now.

Instead of lashing out, he ducks his head under the lump of sun visor and--hands clenched hard around the steering wheel to ward off tears--looks up at the sign, hoping it'll inspire something in him, a fleck of bravery that he doesn't have now and sure as fuck never had then.

Turns out it's easy to act like he does once he sees that sign and remembers all the stupid shit it's seen them do. How nothing can be worse than that time Bill broke his nose tripping over a centimeter deep puddle in full view of the 80th birthday party seated at the windows, or the time Ben threw up in the bushes and stumbled--Richie lightly nudged him--into it.

That was their thing, they used to pile around a table here every Friday night in high school, stealing chairs from the tables around them to fit. They showed up at all hours of the night after proms and homecomings, in fragments during spring and summer breaks, screeching like banshees or shushing each other as if that would stop the waitstaff--who already hated them, for the record--from cutting them dirty looks.

They came here after high school graduation, in itchy gowns with caps tucked under their arms, rolls of film to be developed--which never were, he's sure, wherever they were now--and the first trial period of freedom they'd ever had. They were holy fucking terrors that night, shooting straw wrappers and flicking water from each other's cups at one another, laughing loud enough like it would make up for how silent it would be once summer was over and they all spread out over the country. 

He can still distinctly remember sitting on one of the bathroom sinks in his gown, sucking on an unwanted lemon wedge from one of Eddie's sweet teas, never wanting the night to end while helping Stan wash ketchup out of his hair in the other sink, the smell of cheap, floral handsoap mixing with the cooking grease in the air still vivid enough in his memory now that he can feel echoes of queasiness.

The ghost of a smile pats his face, and it's enough to urge him out of the car. It doesn't stop him from keeping his hand clamped around his keys like a lifeline, but it's close enough to the image he'd wanted to project that he can't fault himself. He's never been obedient to anything, let alone his own wants, has he?

He shoves his glasses up his face like there's any room to do so and steps quickly so as not to give himself time to look back. Eyes on the prize and all that middle school guidance counselor bullshit. 

The sign above lights up a few stray puddles in oozy red, and he's too focused on watching out for them that he doesn't see what's in front of him until he's already rounded the corner and is standing in full sight of the people by the doors.

At first it doesn't even register that he's looking at Ben Hanscom and not another fucking Hemsworth that's crawled out of the woodwork to arrive in North Nowheresville, USA, but all it takes to see it is one look at the expression on his face and knowing it's directed at the redhead in front of him. Heart on his sleeve for life apparently, might as well tattoo it on one of those impressive biceps and make a schtick of it.

And Bev. His heart kicks in his chest at the sight of her--looking nothing like he remembers, save for the carrot top, and yet still so known to him he couldn't pass her over if he tried. Fuck, had he missed her, smirk and curls and all, one of the best of his best friends.

He figures it's now or never. Or, more aptly, now or watch them make out, which isn't exactly first on his list of things to do while he's here. Bev would probably sock the shit out of him if he got in the way of the Hanscom kiss she, to his knowledge, never got, anyway. So he steps forward, mouth working faster than his mind--which is, at least, one final great comfort before he cannonballs into the deep end. 

There's a split second where he makes eye contact with the point of no return. Where every single shot of pain and fear and helplessness he ever felt here and at home and at school and whatever other fucked up playgrounds they could find pierces his carefully constructed armor, and he feels the weight of it for the first time in a long time. He hadn't realized how much he was carrying still--of his stomach churning when he passed the bridge a few miles the other way, of doing the math every minute of every day on what he could pull back without raising suspicion, of knowing so intrinsically that he was the outsider of outsiders. He knew there was still some left in his blood, but not so much; not so many summer days of looking at his shoes and fall nights of wanting an out that no one was offering.

He sees it all for what it is, and then he sees hands scrubbing noogies into his hair and arms wrapped around his shoulders and eyes finding his and he hears laughter and _you coming or what, Rich?_ and he crosses that threshold, shoves his keys in his pocket and says fuck it, fuck all of it.

He starts with, "Wow, you guys look great," to startle them apart, adds, "So what the fuck happened to me?" to leave them with a little dignity in hand, since he's feeling so damn sentimental.

Bev's eyes snag on him, and if he were the type he'd say he can actually see the moment she sees him, really fucking sees him, and lights up. And if he were the type, he'd say that it means more to him than he could ever articulate. But he's not, so he smiles nervously and flexes his hands at his sides, wondering if he can go in for the hug or not.

"Hi, Richie." And he loves how it's never in question, that she still knows him, too. 

"Hey, Bev."

It's not until they wrap one another up in their arms, not until he feels Ben cuff his shoulder, not until he gets inside and sees Bill's old fucking mug (and rejoices in the fact that he went gray first,) not until he greets Mike with a vigor he hasn't had in years, not until he hears Eddie's ever-endless, neurotic monologue and knows it's him before he ever turns his head and sees him, that Richie feels like he's home. But he feels it all the same and that's something he hasn't been able to say in a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> richie, later, after remembering everything: wait so was tht overwhelming burst of fear as soon as i entered the town limits bc of my own issues or bc of clown magic
> 
> im on tumblr @foxmulldr !!


End file.
